Wednesday, June 16, 2010

rodent omens

This must be my week for meeting new mammals. Today I was running errands out west, and I can't say I was really paying much attention to the scenery, when all of a sudden a groundhog runs across the sidewalk, moving much more quickly than I would have expected a groundhog to move. I've never really given groundhogs much thought, and was somehow under the impression that they lived Somewhere Else, not here, but according to my Kaufman mammal book, their range covers most of northern and eastern North America. 40th West doesn't seem like very happy groundhog territory, but there he was, squeezing itself under a chain link fence and disappearing behind or under a pile of palettes. He must've crossed the (rather busy) street to have gotten where he was, and I just didn't notice until he was right in front of me. It seems like it should be some kind of omen, to have a groundhog cross your path, but I'm not sure what it means.